Thirteen Somali men have been convicted of 31 sex crimes against seven vulnerable teenage girls.
The men used and abused their victims, exploiting their trust and, in some cases, trafficking them across the city to exploit them.
Including drug offences, prison sentences totalling more than 75 years have already been imposed on six of the perpetrators at the crown court, with punishments lasting decades more sure to follow for the remainder.
The youngest victims were only 13 when they were shared around and forced to commit degrading and emotionally-damaging sex acts. Some of the more manipulative offenders told lies about their “culture” and “traditions” to persuade girls to give in to abuse. In time, victims succumbed to the demands because, for them, it had become the norm.
Against a background of upbringings in care or broken homes, some felt they were in loving relationships with abusers, but they knew no better.
This year, two trials have been held at Bristol Crown Court as part of an extensive Avon and Somerset police investigation called Operation Brooke. Due to reporting restrictions to avoid the probe being jeopardised, only now has the shocking story been revealed. The second trial finished on Wednesday (November 26) after eight days – more than 32 hours – of jury deliberation.
Prosecutor Anna Vigars told the jury during the case: “It is about the defendants simply using the girls to satisfy them whenever they felt like it, doing it so often that, no doubt, it began to feel normal so far as these girls were concerned.
“There are elements of exhibitionism, with sex taking place in front of other people in the group. Much of it sordid, none of it is romantic.”
The offenders did not operate as a gang in the traditional sense, but almost all of them had street names. They knew each other in smaller groups – two were brothers – and the main protagonists each abused more than one victim. Some of their sexual prey were friends with each other and the overlap of acquaintance between them and the defendants built up a disturbing web of degradation.
One of the most shocking episodes of abuse took place in December, 2012. ‘Target’, ‘Starns’, ‘JJ’ and a group of unknown men were in a room at The Premier Inn hotel on St James Barton roundabout, the court heard.
Target, 22, and JJ – who had access to his mother’s car and was cleared of trafficking – collected two girls, but instead of taking them to the hotel they first dropped them off at a flat in Barton Hill. Here, one of the girls, aged only 13, was raped by a stranger who has not yet been arrested.
Mrs Vigars told the jury: “Sadly, by that point in her young life, it was simply one of the things that happened to her from time to time. She got raped, she moved on.”
The girls were then taken to the hotel, where the same victim was raped twice by Post Office-worker Target, then again by Starns. She told the police she felt “nasty” and “just wanted to disappear”.
The 13-year-old considered ‘Deeq’ her boyfriend, but was persuaded by him, against her will, to have sex with his brother Omar under a bridge near the B&Q store off Muller Road. Here, 24-year-old Deeq claimed that in his “tradition” and “culture”, girlfriends have sex with their boyfriend’s best pals.
Laying on the lies even thicker, he said he loved her as he asked her to do it, claiming Omar “wanted to turn gay” and that if he did, he would go to hell.
Speaking to police about Deeq – never knowing his true age – she said: “He was different from every other guy. I liked him more and more. He was just so crazy.”
Deeq – who was also abusing another teenager – first claimed he had never met the girl. Later he admitted knowing her, but claimed they had never done anything more than kissing and cuddling. The same girl was incited into prostitution by Kamal, 22, at his flat in Lansdowne Court, Easton.
During the second 10-week Operation Brooke trial, Eastville Park also emerged as a venue for sexual abuse and exhibitionism. One victim was raped by ‘Abs’ in a different Lansdowne Court flat after he blocked a bedroom door so there was no escape. ‘Zac’, meanwhile, raped one of his victims in a bathroom at a property on Victoria Parade, Redfield. She didn’t want to perform a sex act on him but, thinking there was no way out, “just did it”.
When questioned by police, most of the defendants denied knowing their victims at first. But with phone and computer records, CCTV footage and the girls’ statements stacked against them, some went on the offensive. Target, for example, painted the girl he raped in the hotel as a “dirty slag”, said what he did was “consensual” and that he believed the girls he was with were all over 16. Talented amateur fighter and Olympic hopeful Omar claimed he was too busy boxing.
Ultimately, their deceit and vain attempts at self-preservation crumbled and the shocking secret lives they were leading could be uncovered, much to the shock and sadness of their families, who supported them from the public gallery throughout the second trial.
Tried in July and sentenced for up to 13 years in jail:
- Mustapha Farah, 21, Liban Abdi, 22, and Arafat Osman, 20, were each jailed for 13 years for paying for the sexual services of a child and supplying Class A drugs
- Abdulahi Aden, 20, was jailed for 13 years for rape and supplying Class A drugs
- Mustafa Deria, 22, was found guilty of rape and was jailed for seven-and-a-half years
- Idleh Osman, 22, was jailed for 10 years for facilitating child prostitution and supplying Class A drugs
Tried in November and due to be sentenced on Friday:
- Sakariah Sheik, 21, Abdirashid Abdulahi, 21, and Jusuf Abdirizak, 20, were found guilty of rape
- Mohamed Dahir, 22, was found guilty of causing child prostitution
- Omar Jumale, 20, was found guilty of having sex with a child
- Said Zakaria, 22 was found guilty of rape and having sex with a child
- Mohamed Jumale, age 24, was found guilty of sex with a child
